Daddy, I'm in love ... and he looks just like you

Men tend to wind up with life partners who look like their
mothers, while women are lured to partners who look like
their fathers, scientists report.

Heterosexuals are deeply attracted to individuals whose faces
are similar to those of their opposite-sex parent, they said,
suggesting that this characteristic is rooted in an evolutionary
drive.

A team led by Tamas Bereczkei at the University of Pecs in
Hungary created a model of facial ratios - width of jaw, distance
between mouth and brow and so on - comprising 14 facial zones.

They measured 312 Hungarian adults from 52 different families
using this method. Each family included a couple and two sets of
parents.

The researchers found a significant correlation in facial
similarities between a woman's mate and her father, and also
between a man's partner and his mother.

The team tested the model on faces that were randomly selected
from the general population and repeated the experiment with a
panel of judges, who also picked out the same pairings from
randomly selected groups of photos.

Interestingly, men and women focused on different parts of the
face when they home in on a potential mate, they found.

A man's lover and his mother tended to have similar fullness in
the lips, width of mouth, as well as length and width of jaw.

But for women, the critical features were the distance between
mouth and brow, the height of the face, distance between the eyes
and the size of a man's nose.

The choices are driven less by psychology and socialisation and
more by evolutionary pressures, Bereczkei suggests.

Too much genetic overlap - as can happen with incest - is an
evolutionary no-no.

It could increase the degree to which parents share genes with
offspring, enhancing the genetic representation of future
generations.

Finding similar partners might also help perpetuate genetic
complexes that have evolved to adapt to a particular
environment.

There may be an additional bonus, which probably has more to do
with happiness than a genetic imperative.

"Human couples who are similar in physical and psychological
characteristics are more likely to remain together than dissimilar
partners, possibly leading to an increase in fertility," the study
concludes.

The research appeared in the journal Proceedings Of The
Royal Society B on Wednesday. The Royal Society is Britain's
de facto academy of sciences.

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